Weird War
by storm-aurora
Summary: Ruby woke up hoping that today would be a normal day. With his friends, he should have known that wouldn't happen.


**A/N: The final, and most difficult for me to write, prompt of a series of drabble prompts, requested by anonymous: "Can we just pretend like we're normal for once?" with the Hoenn trio.**

Emerald let out a loud cry and fired off a couple more shots as he sprinted after his target. The first one missed, but the second one hit her squarely in the back. Angered, she spun around and aimed her gun directly at Emerald's head. He tried to stop and duck at the same time and ended up tackling her, causing her shot to strike the ground in front of her.

He got to his feet and turned around. "Missed me, Sapphire!" he taunted, sticking his tongue out at her. He realized too late that this was a bad idea, since she not only couldn't see his mouth through his helmet, he accidentally licked the inside of the helmet with his long tongue. He silently cursed the genes that made his tongue the only part of him that _wasn't_ short.

"How 'bout now?" Sapphire yelled, springing to her feet and firing another shot at Emerald's head. It hit right on his left eye, splattering across his clear face visor.

"No fair! Now I can't see!" Emerald complained, attempting to wipe the blue paint off his visor and only succeeding in smearing it further.

"More shots for me!" she exclaimed gleefully.

"Never!" Emerald shouted, dropping his hand and dodging her next shot. He started to sprint away–

"Hey! You ruined my merchandise!"

Emerald glanced behind him to see a woman standing at one of the stalls, glaring at them. She held up a Swablu Doll that looked like it was missing part of a wing. On second glance, Emerald realized that it had both wings, but one of them had been hit by Sapphire's paint ball and was now half blue, the same color as Swablu's body.

"Sorry, ma'am," Sapphire called. "We'll pay ya back once we finish the game!"

"You ought to pay me back now!" the vendor exclaimed, but Emerald and Sapphire had already sprinted further into Slateport Market.

Emerald dashed through the market, Sapphire in hot pursuit. He weaved around stalls and visitors so that Sapphire wouldn't shoot at him and risk damaging more property, but he soon reached the opposite end of the market where there were no more stalls to hide behind. Instead, he ducked into the large pile of wooden crates that held the vendors' extra merchandise.

He crept around the crates, trying to remain out of Sapphire's line of vision until he could get behind her. It wasn't too hard to be stealthy when Sapphire was making such a racket clambering on top of the crates, looking for him. He finally managed to sneak all the way around the crates and stepped out to fire at Sapphire, but at the same time she finally turned around and saw him.

"Ah-ha!" Sapphire shouted triumphantly, aiming at Emerald. But he had already lined up his shot, and he fired a paint ball into her chest and darted away before Sapphire could fire at him.

She growled and leaped off the crates, shooting at Emerald's retreating back. Emerald glanced over his shoulder to see where she was so that he could avoid her fire. When he looked back, he realized he was charging right at someone else. Emerald could take the hit and run into him or swerve around him and let him get hit by the paint ball instead.

 _He's a friend, he'll understand,_ Emerald thought. He swerved.

The paint ball splattered Ruby's arm.

"What the…what is this!?" Ruby gasped, staring at his arm in horror.

"Sorry, Ruby," Emerald said unapologetically. "It'll come out. Good going, Sapphire!" he shouted at her as he landed another hit on her chest. She jumped back into the pile of crates, and Emerald followed.

Ruby couldn't tell if Emerald's last remark was meant to be sarcastic or not, but he certainly hoped it was. Sure, the paint would wash off of his skin, but what about all the little dots of blue paint that landed on his shirt? What if those never came out? His shirt would be ruined!

"You know those two?" the incense seller asked, interrupting Ruby's thoughts.

"Yes," Ruby replied, knowing there was no point in denying that much. But maybe he didn't have to admit that they were _friends_ and risk the seller thinking he was just as weird as they were…

"Great!" the seller said. "Can you get them to stop this paintball fight? I don't want to set out my merchandise and risk it being ruined by a stray paintball."

Ruby suddenly wished he had denied knowing them. "Surely there's someone else who can stop them?" he asked.

"They won't listen to us," the seller said, shrugging. "But they might listen to a friend."

"W-we're not friends," Ruby said defensively. "We're acquaintances."

The seller raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay, they might listen to an acquaintance."

"It's unlikely."

"I'll give you half off your purchase."

"Fine," Ruby sighed. He gestured to the incense he had been deliberating between. "I'll take them both. Set them aside for me until I get back."

"Thanks, Ruby," the seller said, flashing him a smile and putting the incense aside. He didn't want the Contest legend to think poorly of him for pushing him into this.

Ruby walked over to the pile of wooden crates. Sapphire was perched on the highest crate, looking for Emerald. "Sapphire!" Ruby called.

"What?" she called back.

"Can you guys move your paintball fight somewhere else?" he asked. "You're causing a bit of a public disturbance."

"We gotta finish the game!" Sapphire shouted back. "Get hit ten times and yer out. I'm at five."

"And how many is Emerald at?" Ruby asked.

"Seven," Sapphire grinned. "But, y'know, you can make the game go faster if ya join. We brought an extra set of equipment just in case. It's over by the east entrance."

Ruby groaned loudly, and Sapphire spotted Emerald out of the corner of her eye. She leaped down in front of him and hit him in the chest, and he returned the favor before sprinting back towards the stalls. Ruby heard the cry of a Wingull – another victim of a stray paint ball, no doubt – and buried his face in his hands. "Can we just pretend like we're _normal_ for once?" he grumbled, heading for the east entrance.

As Sapphire said, there was a big gray box by the east entrance with the label "Paintball stuff" on the lid. Inside, there was a full-face helmet, a padded vest, and a gun that looked a lot like Emerald's E Shooter. It also had a bag of red paintballs to use as ammo. Ruby suited up, loaded a couple of paintballs into his gun, and closed the box.

As soon as he did, he heard a whoop from Emerald. "Ruby's joined the game!" he cheered, firing a green paintball at Ruby's chest in celebration. While Ruby frantically checked his sleeves to make sure no paint had splattered on them, Sapphire hit him with a blue one.

"Wait! I don't even know the rules!" Ruby protested.

"I already explained 'em to ya!" Sapphire shouted, hitting him again.

"Take ten hits and you're out," Emerald reminded Ruby while firing another paintball at him. "Oh, and you can't use Pokémon," he added.

"He's just a sitting Psyduck," Sapphire crowed, taking another shot.

"You know you can move, right?" Emerald laughed.

Ruby gritted his teeth. "That's it," he muttered. "This means _war_."

He fired off two quick shots in succession, one at Emerald and one at Sapphire. Sapphire dodged hers, but Emerald wasn't so lucky; the paintball hit the other side of his helmet, effectively blinding him. He couldn't see Sapphire taking aim at him, but he felt her nail him with a chest shot.

"Shoot. That's ten," he sighed. "I'm out."

"Nice shot," Ruby told Sapphire.

"Hey, I couldn'ta made it if you hadn't set me up," Sapphire said modestly. "Do ya still wanna keep playin', or–"

Ruby cut Sapphire off by shooting a paintball at her helmet, around where her mouth should be. "Seven!"

"Oh, so you wanna play like that, huh!?" Sapphire exclaimed, jogging a few steps back. "Let's see how you like _this_!" Sapphire fired a shot at his legs, but Ruby sidestepped to avoid it.

"Low blow, Sapphire, low blow," Ruby said, but he was grinning under his helmet.

Ruby charged at her and she sprinted back into the marketplace, surprising him when she stopped for a moment to glance over her shoulder and fire a shot at his chest. He followed her to the pile of wooden crates, which she jumped on top of.

"You're making yourself a target, Sapphire!" Ruby exclaimed, hitting her in the back.

"But now yer an easier target for me!" she hollered, firing a shot on his helmet. "Now _you're_ at seven!"

"But you're still higher," Ruby said, eyeing the stack of crates that Sapphire was standing on top of. They weren't stacked evenly, and if he got around to the other side…

Ruby started maneuvering between the crates. "Yer just like Em," Sapphire laughed. She fired a shot ahead of Ruby, where he'd be moving to, but he anticipated the shot and stopped so it missed him. Then he sprinted towards Sapphire's stack of crates. She hit his helmet twice while he was running; one more shot, and she would – what was he doing?

He slammed his shoulder into a crate, hitting it with enough force that the top crate – the one Sapphire was standing on – started to wobble. If she had been standing on the other side of the crate, nothing would have happened, but since she was standing on the very edge so that she could see Ruby, the impact made her topple off the crate and fall to the ground.

Ruby stood over her triumphantly and aimed his gun at her chest. "Nine, and ten," he declared as he fired the final two shots. "It looks like I win."

Sapphire laughed. "Looks like ya did."

Ruby helped her to her feet as Emerald caught up to them. "Did you have fun?" he asked Ruby with a sly grin.

"Hm." Ruby straightened up and cleared his throat. He looked to the side as he replied, "I suppose it was a _little_ enjoyable."

"Good, 'cause we're about to have to do the part that's not so enjoyable," Emerald said. "We have to clean up the market that we just painted blue and green."

"Aw, but it looks nice with a little splash of color," Sapphire said, following Emerald out from the crates.

Ruby smiled and followed them. Maybe they weren't normal, but they were his friends. And it felt good to have a little weird once in a while.

 **A/N: Huh, did you know that this is the first time that I've published a fic with Sapphire in it? I didn't realize, with all the unfinished stuff that I've written involving her. Let me know what you thought about her :3**


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